Found My Front Door!

I could not believe my eyes, this was the one! Let me back up, I always get ahead of myself when I get excited and I get excited when I am building and tearing and decorating and finding good  DEALS!!! I found a wonderful store, it is connected to Habitat for Humanity, all proceeds go to fund the program, which is a wonderful, wonderful organization. It is a big warehouse, no A/C, very rough, no fluff , but my kinda store!And it has just about everything, and I mean everything. From a restaurant that has closed to a foreclosed house that has been gutted and only 10 pieces of tile have been salvaged. But, let me tell you I love, love, love  this place. You can find the most unique things, like my front door! I can only imagine where my door came from, the history, the story, it looks old, maybe another lil beach cottge, who knows, that's what's so thrilling! There is something so fulfilling about rummaging through stuff that looks like junk and finding  something that you know you can make into something great. We have all become so accustomed, almost lazy, to just buying what we need, no personal investment, no ownership, no creativity. And it seems it has made people value nothing,  have too many things. I find now, these "things" I truly love and value, because I have an investment in them. Even my kids, I will hear them tell the stories behind the things we have in our home, even they have a pride for the things I have found and made into something beautiful. It seems we are headed back to a time when my junk might be someone else's treasure. I think it  gives people a sense of community to give to each other, to be involved in others lives, it teaches us empathy, compassion, concern for someone besides ourselves. My kids will now say Mom do you think so and so could use this? Never would they have ever even thought of such a thing before we found ourselves here. So for that I am grateful. So back to my door! It is amazing! They had 50.00 on it. Which was a little high for our budget, since we have no budget, Ha Ha, so I offered the man 25.00 and he took it!!! While I was there I also  found some tile, two bags of grout, a blind for the kitchen window and the door all for 30.00!!! It was so much more fun than looking in a book and ordering it! This has been a hard 3 weeks, we have been working everyday. And not on minor things, major things. Things that keep everything in a mess and 'everything" where it doesn't belong. A womans nightmare, especially one like me, tetering on mental delution!!! You would think these things would get easier, but they seem to get harder on me with age, or maybe it is my mental capacity. It doesn't seem to hold up as well under situations like these, it almost gets muddled or confused. I know Kenny thinks I'm crazy at times, He will ask me a question, a question about something we have talked about for days, for instance the room we are framing in, and I will have this blank stare or have a stupid response, he will say, "Woman, are you alright?" And I will laugh it off, but inside I am silently concerned, embarrassed that I am crazy or something is wrong. As woman we are built to hold it all together no matter what, because no matter what, our family comes first, my children come first, my mental breakdown will just have to wait until I have the kids rooms layed out, the house in order, them in the right school and sure they are settled and happy, Kenny's needs meet, and only then I can have my breakdown. In all seriousness, I layed in bed last night feeling overwhelming. It is just one more week until school starts and I still have my kids camping in the living room. I try to make dinner and keep everyone on a, some-what of a, normal schedule, but we are not "normal", we still have a toilet that is sitting in the middle of a room with no wall around it, like I said, the kids are sleeping in the living room! We are still getting clothes out of bins. I was shopping for that front door, and for a couple of hours I just forgot it all and just enjoyed the "hunt'. I go to find something and I just keep moving things from one place to another, it is just exhausting, and a constant reminder of what a disorganized mess things are. The kids have been so great, they get up every morning and make their beds, keep their lil areas picked up, they're happy as pie, I guess I could take a lesson from them, but, like I said early on, this is my blog and I am writing about how I feel and hopefully how other women feel as well. But, the kids I see it in their eyes, feed off of my emotions, if I am happy, they are happy, they look to me to set the standard for just about everything they do. I set the "how" our day goes. That is a powerful position we Mothers hold. Wow, I guess I just spoke to myself, as woman that is why we do what we do, lil eyes are always on us, looking to us to find peace, security, joy,whatever emotion that day will bring usual the parent (Mom) sets it. As I started this day, thinking, am I little loony ?, Or do I just expect a little too much, I reflect back to the past few days, I hear the laughter of my children and I hear my eldest (Wyatt) say, "Mom I didnt know how much went into these "special" sandwiches you make me, thanks Mom", or Isabella, "Mom" as I was fixing her hair, "how do you always know just what I always need", or Coleman whispering in my ear, just yesterday, "If I want to come home keep your phone on you", he was wanting to spend the night with a cousin, and he knew, as in the past I would come get him, even in the middle of the night. So Moms, crazy, a lil, I guess yes, if managing all that we do for the ones we love, I guess it is well worth the loonicy. One day we will have this lil beach cottage done! And maybe, just maybe, in the process,  I won"t lose my sanity, and maybe, just maybe, I am gaining a lot more than just a little beach cottage.

Who Will Tuck Her In Tonight?

As I sit here writing, I have Gracing Mae to my left curled up asleep, which is hardly noticeable, she weighs 'bout 3lb, but, I also have Sweetie Pie who is a fat heifer (a mutt who weighs probably 80lbs) who is asleep at my feet on the Ottoman. I get up early so I can write before the children are awake, and not be distracted and I still find myself  with 2 dogs basically in my lap. But, as I see their eyes gaze up at me, and I feel the warmth of them, I think of the person I spoke to yesterday who has such immense loneliness in their voice, it cut through to my heart like a knife. I think about just the contact of these 2 dogs, the companionship, but, to have no human relationships in your life, ones of substance, has got to be like death. This person is in their 50s and as they spoke of the young years, the golden years, and all their expectations for what lied ahead, I knew it was, most certainly,  not what they got.  Somehow, even with a degree, a Masters I believe, a job just never seemed to quite work out. One of those cases was this person, they are not a bully or a taker but, is a kind, hard worker, one you could overlook or even take advantage of, which is, what it seems to me, has happened. It is even sadder when you see them reconnect with old friends from the past and they are not transparent or real, they act as though their lives are perfect and make this person feel even more alone. They don't even try to see that their friend is broken and desperate, they just need someone to take their hand and say, "I understand, your not alone, I am not judging you, I am your Friend, nothing can change that." So as they sit in a room full of people they know, and  have looked forward to seeing, they feel more alone than when they got there. And I'm not saying make your life something it's not, I am quick to share the wonderful gifts in my life, but I am also open and honest about the failures and brokenness in my life also. People relate to the good and the bad, what they don't relate to, what NOBODY needs, is fraud, being fake, being something we're not. It is sad because it seems our media, our music, everything around us has driven us to this mentality. But it such a sad, sad way to live your life. I have never had such freedom, or such wonderful friendship, as I have had since I have given totally of myself and our situation. Not everyone has been gracious and welcomed my "method" I guess you could call it, they have said, "Angie, you need to keep these things personal, why would you want to expose your family like this, what about your kids"..... and in the beginning alot of my anxiety was because of my family, but, when I felt called to love people and help them it wasn't with the stipulation "well God only if it doesn't cost me anything", I will do what you ask me. It was simply, yes. Even now, looking back, our family has gained so much more then what we have lost by sharing our story with others. Every where I turn I meet a devastated family needing someone to say a kind word to them, to say they understand, to offer them some hope that they will make it through losing their home, or their husband losing his job. A man so broken he thinks of suicide because he can't provide for his family. It's not even about  money, it's so far beyond that now, it's about hope. When someone loses hope, they lose the ability to live. When I drove away from 6th Ave I had lost all hope of ever setting up home again. My heart and spirit was broken. I had lost hope. Had it not been for my children I would have laid down and died. The house in North Carolin began a healing in me, that brought back a promise of hope, that one day, I could have my own place to call home. There's a security that comes with having a home, somewhere to gather your children, to laugh and eat together, lay down at night safe from the world, but what I have realized is home is a shell that can be made up of a thousand different types materials. From an RV to a million dollar board and batton dream cottage on St. George Island. "Home" is what you put inside that shell. As I was talking to my old friend, I said to him, your value is not in your mortgage, or your job, but in that boy that you have invested your entire life in, in the Wednesday boys' program you have been faithful to for 20 years week after week, that is what is of value, the care you give your bed ridden mother, those are the things which define your life. Times are hard, and I am afraid they are going to get alot harder. I was at Walmart today and I have to say for the first time I felt a sense of fear, an unsettleness when I passed two  different people, they just seemed so desperate and almost had a wild look in their eyes, like there was nothing there-an emptiness. I felt fearful. When people feel hopeless, they can be dangerous. They looked like caged animals. They just looked so poor and helpless, and alone. I had a sense that to numb the pain they both were using some kind of substance. There children broke my heart, they looked so lost as well, running to keep up with the adults, but the adults not even noticing they were there. As I thought of my friend and how he was feeling abandoned and alone, like his life had some how made a detour and how he felt as though his life was the only one that had disappointment, and I thought of those people I had seen in Walmart, the one which I have heard referred to as the "ghetto" Walmart, I had to think, God, where do all these lost people go to at night, where is that little girl at tonight? Who is making her safe, who is having dinner with her, laughing with her, reassuring her everything is gonna be alright, Mommy and Daddy is here. There cart was full of microwave dinners, is she fixing her own dinner, as I make my own children a homemade dinner, maybe she won't even have dinner. Loneliness is far worse than losing a house. Being alone is far worse than losing a new car. I can guarantee you that little girl would trade anything, to have her daddy tuck  her in bed at night and know she is safe, even if it is a one room apartment. Security comes not from what we have but from who we love and who loves us. Were the hippies right? Is there such a thing
as "free" love-Well, Yes and No! Love, defined by empathy, always cost the one doing the loving, it may cost them everything, it may cost them their life, but it Does Cost!  That is why empathy should make us more than willing to lose our "dignity", lose our "status", lose our sanctimoniousness, and step beyond ourselves.

Loving Someone May Cost You Something

Had a great time getting initiated into the gang. My cousin has a group of friends she met while pregnant with her middle child and they have remained friends some 12 yrs later, which is a very unusual thing. People are just not loyal. They don"t seem to know what it is like to attach themselves to someone and love them regardless of what they may be going through, just simply love them. It is easy to love someone when they require nothing of you, and their life is all neat and tidy, it gets a little more complicated when they're losing their home, going through a divorce or they have a child arrested,  because it may COST them something to remain friends. When you go to the grocery store you may have to  buy your kids less so you can buy your friends family a few groceries. Don"t we all have something we can share, anyway? My Granny always said that as long as she invited someone in need to her table her table always had plenty. How different things would be if we all abided by her conviction. No book she read, no talk show she heard, no tally system she kept, i.e. (well if I help this one, I can't help that one) no, she just helped whoever was in front of her that had a need. She didn't ask if they really needed it, or deserved it, I think she felt that was left in the hands of God, her reward was in giving, not judging. And I am one of the worst, it is just my nature, because I am a rule follower, and if you follow the rules, your life should follow suit. . NOT!! Life just isn't like that. I would have never admitted it but, I never missed church, helped the homeless, paid tithes, etc.. so why did things turn out the way they did? If I gave, why did I lose my home, I raised Emma from the wound in a Christian home, yet, she made her own decisions that ultimately lead to a felony count, why did these thing happen, especially, if I had played by the rules!  If life is drivin by karma, I suck at it, I must have been a goat in another life!  You  should do these things, you chose to live by the principles I spoke of in the very first post I wrote, because you know they are the right thing to do. And you also have the hope beyond your own failures and inadequacies that God ultimately holds your future, and your children's future, in His hands. As I have made entries into this blog I have often thought of statements like,"If I did this", or "I did that", I guess trying to justify why  it is not our fault we wound up here, but, almost 3 and half years later, I think the only significance of any of that is, I did what I knew to be right and the rest is out of my hands. What I have taken from this crazy ride is, the past 3 years I have been able to give very little, monetary wise, and the tally system has been W  A  Y  in Gods favor. He has meet our need through so many different sources, I could'nt began to name them all, saying that..... it was not an easy, layed out, nice and neat, schedule of when to expect the next check. There were many days and nights I looked to the heavens and cried OUT what are we going to do? From, not having electricity, to not having food, to no hot water, to needing to see a Doctor, not minor things but big things, like seeing my heart and soul, Em, arrested and being driven away. Things that alter your mind and soul, forever burned into the recesses of your mind, but, there was a time I felt abandoned and alone, and I felt as though I had failed God in someway and I was being punished, because my life was not going along in a manner that I was use to, in fact looking back, even though it was not in a conventional way, no matter how we got here, we got here. God always met us! And we may not have had a roof over our head that had our name on the deed, but none the less God provided us a shelter, and my family was in tact and safe. So I have learned to not be so hard even on myself about my lack of faith or lack of ability to believe, or at times even question, because even with all that, I rely on His abilities and His faithfulness to see us through. Kenny and I sat and made an outline, so twice a week I will be getting back to our story, and the other 3 days I will be writing about our day to day present life and the progress of our lil beach cottage.

Highest Order Of Business, Finding A Church

We visited a church today that, instantly, I felt a connection to. It had a very warm and inviting feeling. It was very much like the church I had grown up in and the church we had attended in Tallahassee. The kids also really liked childrens church. So unless something drastically changes I am pretty sure we will be staying at Highest Praise Family Worship Center. And it is just icing on the cake to also have family who attend. It felt like the old days, go to church, have lunch with family, then spend the afternoon relaxing and visiting. The kids are just so thrilled to be connected to family, I have seen a big change even in Wyatts personality just in the 2 weeks since we have been here. Kenny and Dad got in late last night with another trailer full of stuff from Tallahassee. Finally, I have MY bed. It will be so good to have my own bed. It has been almost 3 years since I have had my bed. As I see the familiar stuff I feel my heart tighten, and my stomach get that familiar sick feeling. I remember just what we have lost. And get glimpse in my mind of our old life and it saddens me. The ability to jump in my Denali and buy the kids a pair of sneakers or go visit a friend, without the fear of breaking down and having air conditioning or heat, a seat belt for everyone. Being able to tell you where all my stuff is. Right as this moment, if I had to get the kids ready for school, I couldn't tell you where half of their things are. I met my cousin at the pool with Emma's bathing suit bottom and my top! My stuff is packed and scattered everywhere. I just didn't have the luxury of packing it and putting it, neat and labeled, in a storage, because all of that cost money. All of this sooo goes against my nature. But I am determined to, and I tell myself, not to let these things get the best of me, they are not going to rule my life. They are not priority! Sherri Marie, my cousin, was telling me when someone gets evicted they just put the people's things out by the road, and people stop and just rummage through it, as if it were trash, not someones life. There are people living in one room dumps, entire families! Our economy is in a sad state of affairs. Families moving in with grandparents and siblings. There is a home next to us that is up for sale and a cleaning crew was sent in and they found that families children's baby books, first pictures, a bin full of memorabilia, that no doubt they had no choice but to leave behind. I can completely relate, I had to prioritize my things, by what was most important. Number one a bigger U-haul would have cost more money and gas and we just don't have the money for storage. So you just do what you gotta do. I hear people say, have more faith, are you finances in a mess, is your marriage in jeopardy, do you have a child in trouble? Your faith must be weak? Your trust in God must be weak, well I think it might be the opposite. I think, it takes a strong person to go through losing a home, gather their things and make a home for her family no matter where they have to live. I think it takes a ALOT of faith in God to remain in a marriage that week after week you see no progress, and it takes tremendous faith, to trust in God, it takes faith not to lose your faith, when you see a child you have raise to do right and you see a situation you know will eventually lead them to heartache. I can say today, I feel very strong, I feel confident in who I serve and in my faith. It doesn't mean I don't doubt or I don't get down, but I feel strong because of what I have been through, and God has strengthened my faith, not made it weaker just because I have had trails and hardships in my life, faith isn't all fluff and angels singing, faith is having the strength to get through today, and when you lay down, you know God will greet you in the morning and give just what you need to get through the next, and faith is not allowing the hardness of life to keep you from trying to help the
people around you who you know are helpless and alone, faith keeps you from losing your compassion!

Same Family, New Memories

My cousin took me to lunch, her treat, and we spent 3 hours just visiting and catching up. It is so wonderful to have family and feel a connection, especially during times of desperation.We have felt so alone for so long, God it feels so good to feel apart of a family again. We have been to 3 different homes in the week since we have been here. I will start having people in my lil cottage starting next week, even if the floors are plywood and the walls are not finished. I have realized, guests need the love of my home, not the covering of the floor or the texture on the walls, all that will come in time. If I wait until all that is done, time will pass and opportunities to make memories with people I love will also pass. I just can't allow that. I think about the families sitting in their home consumed with fear, that tomorrow will be the day that they're evicted and have no where to live, and because of that fear, they lose the joy of the day they're living in. We have been there, done that. My kids are too great, ALL kids are too great to let a day pass without, grabbing it and embracing it and being thankful for having a family. God is so good, so amazing, He comes through everytime. My cousin called, one of my favorite, he is very special to me, the one who we got the red jeep from, he said he had brand new carpet and new interior doors for our lil cottage! How about that! I didn't even ask! God provided  the need before it ever arose! We haven't even replaced the plywood on the floors, so we will have to store the carpet, but, the point is, God is so detailed, that He provided for us through my cousin on a job, a bank paid for carpet (a foreclosed home) that a homeowner bought, didn't like, was going to throw away, and his thrash was my treasure! How often we underestimate God. I know I am guilty on a daily basis.  With the present state of our economy, we better learn to focus on the little things, because I am certain the bigger things are going to happen in their own good time. We have become so accustom to such high levels of entertaining, we don't know how to just sit and visit. When I was in North Carolina, I invite someone over for dinner and they said, oh you mean meet for dinner, I said no  I  w a n t   to  co o k   y o u   d i n n e r, serve you in my home, and then sit and visit. It has become almost foreign. We have to have events and schedules and, finally,we just can't share our lives. I  have so enjoyed seeing my kids meet their cousins, many of them for the first time, they just jump in, no gadgets and start chatting and playing! Why can't adults be like that? Oh, well, I am here this week by myself with the kids, Kenny and my Dad had to go to Tallahassee for some business, so I am ripping and tearing and I am sure messing something up! I will keep you posted! Oh!,I need some suggestions for naming our lil place! Today is July 27, Well, it has been 4 days since I wrote, I have been busy, busy, but in a good way, Sherri Marie has been so wonderful to take me places and answer all my million and one questions. As I said above the kids are in heaven, they are so enjoying having their cousins to play with. They wake and wanna know who they are visiting today. I sit here and think how, we got here, and how long the road has been. And how difficult and how how joyous, so many emotions from completely different ends of the spectrum, and I think I am at perfect peace with who I call God. TODAY I am at perfect peace. I had made it an absolute mission to get Wyatt into a Christian school, preferably, Oldsmar, Christian, the school I had attended, and the nights I had laid awake, gripped with fear, and that small still voice still whispering, "Angie trust Me, Angie trust Me", just a whisper, not a command or an invasion, just very soothing and calming, as I would doze off, "Angie trust Me". I would make it through another night. Until another would come. And then I would start all over! Boy am I weak, especially when it comes to my kids, I just can't help myself. I am learning, but it is soooo a process. I had been given the names of 3 different schools but just didn't feel right about any of them. So I decided to just wait. So I wait and continue to trust and pray that God holds Wyatt's future, not me, his mother, and believe everything would work out. I am relieved to say it did, and he will be attending Oldsmar Christian! The little ones will be going to the middle school by our house for one year and then next year will transfer to Oldsmar on full scholarship. God is so faithful. We are just human and so often we are tattered and torn from the fight and we just cant see the end. But somehow God always gives us enough courage to get through. The kids met 2 more of their cousins today and they said Mom, they just keep comin and comin! They are lovin it! They wake up and ask, "So who are we gonna meet today?"

The Move

                                                                                               

Well, we are  back in the area of my birth, some 26 yrs later, and I have never tired of the salt air, the gulf breezes or the obnoxious sea gulls! I was at Walmart just down from my house and sea gulls landed on my hood looking for food! I was just saying some pretty nasty things in my head about the heat and the traffic and the rude "older" retired person who gave me the finger, which I must say was not age appropriate, but when that little bird cocked his head at me, the beautiful blue sky as the landscape behind him, I thought WOW, I am just blocks from the ocean, my lil "cottage" (I have named it and lil is not an understatement) is  just walking distance; once again, shame on me! Ok, saying all that,  I will tell you how we wound up here, and then once we are settled I will get back to our story. Kenny still had found no work, and like I had said in previous posts, my Dad had always said, just as my Mom, his home was our home. But, the difference in my Dad,  (they have been apart for 19yrs) he has 3 places, with almost no debt, that we can move in and pay very little. He had made that offer from the beginning but, everything is a process, and I am certain, looking back, God absolutely had us planted for that time in North Carolina. So timing is everything. So Sunday, July 2, I felt a release to leave north Carolina, so we called Dad, he headed up, we pooled our money, my brother also pitched in, and here we are. So let me explain the set up of the 3 places here. They are just blocks off a main highway and blocks from the ocean. BUT.... BUT>>>> The are in desperate need of TLC. One is an RV and the other 2 are mobile homes (very old ones). They have loads of potential and just need lots of elbow grease and someone like Dad who knows plumbing and electrical and Kenny who knows construction. We have the kids beds all lined up in the living rooms now because the bedrooms have no walls. But, they love it!  So we may stay or may renovate and sell and get something else. I just don't know. But, I do know it is a wonderful feeling to not have a mortgage or worry about paying the utilities and have cable! I feel so very thankful, even though some may see it as something "less" than what they would live in, I am so grateful and appreciative, and we are just enjoying "living" without all the other stressors that keeps you from enjoying the little things. We have a beautiful yard, we have the water, and an adjoining park with a huge dock. So I had this idea, to start documenting the renovating process. So I took some before pictures and I will be up dating them daily. It has been a very hard and tiring week. We pulled in from a 12 hr drive and the truck we were driving, that was pulling one of our trailers, the rear end went out, so thank God for his protection all those miles. But now we have to face fixing that vehicle. We will be getting my Bronco fixed, thank God it is under warranty, but the main thing we are settled, the kids are happy, and our next mission is finding a church. Will be posting pictures tomorrow, so you can see how things are looking!!! I am trying to come up with a name for our new lil place, ummmmmm........

Another Devastation Within A Month

My Denali had to be serviced so Emma had picked me up and we lived on a one way street which was only one block from the kids school. Well , it just so happened on this day we finished and were heading through town at around three o'clock. We decided, at the last minute, to drive by the house and then up Mitchell Ave. It was completely random timing, we were going to one more location and then back home in an hour or so, however, as we passed a group of kids, I see 3 boys over 1 boy, they have pinned on the ground . Well, instantly I get fired up, just because the child on the ground is out numbered and then I yell, "Stop!" I have never been able to watch when there is one person at a great disadvantage. The boys all seemed about the same age, but of the three they all looked bigger than the boy on the ground. But suddenly I had a sick feeling come over me, the kind of dreadful sadness you come to in a moment when your mind begins trying to tell you there is much more that you need to understand than you are willing to accept. At that moment I recognized the shirt, it is Wyatt! Emma slams on the brakes, jerks her Audi  in gear and yells, "GET OFF HIM!!!" Wyatt jumps up, scampers for his glasses, and says, "Oh don't worry Emma and Mom we were playing around". And takes off almost running toward the house. Well the little boy said some profanity and said, "Dude, no, we were not playing around",  and by this time Emma had him by the shirt and my head was racing with all kinds of thoughts, but the main one was, Emma is 18 and these are just kids, if she decks one, she will go to jail!. Well, then, one of the boys Mothers pulls up and Emma said, "Mam you better tell your son and his friends to leave my brother alone!" She said, "Well, I would suggest you stay out of it, its not really a big deal". Emma said, "Well I think 3 to 1 is a big deal, I tell you what, they touch him again, I'll show YOU what a big deal it is!!  Cowards!!!"  Thank goodness the woman left and didn't take Emma up on the offer, because, Emma is not the kind to back down. So as we rode to get my truck we went over a million different scenarios in our minds, thinking of every sign we may have missed. I just couldn't think of any. When I got home I spoke to Wyatt and he still said they were just playing around, but I could sense a deep humiliation and embarrassment. Wyatt is very private, very proud, even as a boy he was a grown up. But, in that conversation he opened up and started asking me about the clothes and shoes he had. Why did he have so many tennis shoes. Why did he have shirts with that moose on them. (Abercrombie & Fitch) I always got the kids clothes out the night before and I had noticed Wyatt, had started wearing the same sneakers everyday and he had started wearing solid t-shirts, ones I had  gotten him for gym class. You see this was a new school district for us we had been in a little school for 6 years, actually the same one Emma went to. When we moved to our 6th Avenue house, it was a much broader and more diverse group of children. So I just dressed the kids the same way I had before. And there again, you think as a parent, you have all the answers, if they have the nicest clothes, the latest tennis shoes, the best back-packs, no troubles will come their way. Well at this new  school, I had actually created trouble for Wyatt. Not only was he the new kid, he was the new kid that stuck out. And if you knew Wyatt, you'd know, he couldn't care less. So Emma took him to eat and he told her it had been happening for most of the year. This group of boys, out of their own sadness and lack of having things, had singled Wyatt out, and to take the attention off what they didn't have, they had been humiliating Wyatt. So Emma told Wyatt that those boys didn't have a family like he had to teach them to be good to other people and how to treat other kids, but he couldn't stop wearing what Mom had bought him either, just because those boys were the way they were. And she would be glad to kick their butts!!!!  But we saw a sadness come over Wyatt and a depression that year, that broke our heart, we FELT helpless. Wyatt had always been so quiet, so introverted.  We never knew what he was really thinking.  He thinks on things for weeks and weeks and suddenly he blurts out some extraordinary statement that is way beyond his years. He, also, so loved friendship, and held it so dear to his heart, and he was a true and loyal friend, he to this day has never spoken of those boys. He brought that sadness to North Carolina with him. What is so funny, I say funny, I guess for lack of a better word, is I had prayed that somehow God would make a way that the kids would not have to return to that school. Never did I think I would have to lose my home or leave the state of Florida to do it!. A scholarship to North Florida Christian would have worked! As people would meet Wyatt they would say, he just seem so sad, and it would just rip my heart out, I will tell you, I have not wanted to write this post because I knew it was going to be very emotional. I knew he was, Kenny knew he was, but we just could not seem to get free from it. He needed God to touch him. We didn't know what was the root of what was going on inside him, but it just seemed to be slowly bleeding the joy and happiness out of him. Bitterness had started in Wyatt and the sadness and the loneliness, all those things, no one, no pediatrician, no medication, no book, no special diet,  NO ONE, was going to be able to help him, he needed a touch from God. Well, we had been attending a local, North Carolina Church and had some unforgettable moments at this Church, and even the Pastor had made the statement that sadness seemed to surround Wyatt. I wanted to jack him! That means deck him!!  One Wednesday night, after my class had let out, I slipped in the back of the youth service and the children's church Pastor was filling in for the youth Pastor, he was a wonderful man named Mike and he and his wife, Becky, are extremely sincere and good people. He was closing the service and he asked if anyone felt all alone and needed God to touch them and Wyatt, YES WYATT, raised his hand, and Pastor Mike went to him and just started praying over Wyatt and saying things that were exactly what Wyatt had been through, and a flood of tears came down that boys face and I felt pain so deep in my heart I thought I would die. All I could do was feel immense gratitude and thankfulness and utter amazement that here, in Clyde North Carolina, my son was having a moment of great healing from a past hurt almost 3 years removed. Nothing we had tried worked, NOTHING, all it took was the willingness of that 12 year old boy to surrender his heart to God and say, "God I don't want the sadness, I don't want the bitterness, take it, take it all". And I also realized, it didn't matter if he said all the right words, he didn't have to know all the right theology, it was simply a matter of his heart reaching out to God in a moment of immense honesty and trust. Even now, as I write, I weep, God help me, for the first time in years, on the ride home, Wyatt laughed!, He laughed! It wasn't long before he was even belly laughing! He always tried to laugh, always wanted to laugh, but it was as though his internal war was just far too hopeless. What God can do if only we are willing to say, "God take it, take it all, I can't fix it myself, only you can repair the deep recesses of our heart that no ones sees, only you can fix the wounds so deep no one knows they are there, God only YOU". The truth of it? That twelve year old boy, with the spirit of a fifty year old man, reminded me of something I would desperately need over the next two years!